


Demons in My Head

by astudyinfondness (Elmcat)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Demon Phil Lester, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence Mentions, Warlock Dan Howell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 09:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmcat/pseuds/astudyinfondness
Summary: An unconscious demon mysteriously shows up on Dan's property, and Dan heals it, promising he'll send it back to where it came from as soon as he finds out why it's there. Finding the will to banish a charming demon is harder than he thought.





	Demons in My Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [retts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/retts/gifts).



> Thank you retts for the awesome creative prompts! Hope you enjoy! I had so much fun writing this and building a world I probably wouldn't have considered had it not been for the prompt. 
> 
> And thank you to my wonderful betas Kay and Nadia for putting up with me :) you rock!
> 
> Prompt: Any fantasy-themed fics where one of them is a mythical creature would be awesome, slightly dark with mild gore, on the possessive side, happy ending, no mpreg please!

“No, sorry. That’s completely normal. There’s nothing I can do right now. Wait three days and if her growling gets worse, let me know so I can have a look at her.” Dan hears a half-hearted goodbye. “Okay, thank you, take care.” Dan raises his hand, immediately extinguishing the flame, past the point of caring if he was too quick to break the call.

_ Scratch _ .

There’s a crinkle coming from the garden patch.

Dan thought he’d banished those snitching pixies not two days ago. Even if they’re back for revenge, the carnage on the medicinals can’t be that bad now that he’s renewed the protective wards against small-ish creatures.

The slightest movement still spooks him, though. Maybe he’s just a anxious mess gone insane without proper human contact aside from the occasional fireball call.

Slumping down in his chair, he reaches for a square of nectar and lobs it into his mouth.

He’s somehow bored but anxious at the same time, and chewing something that heals mortals doesn’t do much except fill his taste buds with sickly sweet flavour and distract him from thoughts, reminders that he exists and has been existing for far too long with too little purpose. It distracts him from being swept into a whirlwind of thoughts that have nowhere to go but in spirals around his head.

Dan even makes holograms as a pastime, thinks up imaginary landscapes, grass, constellations, birds, dogs, cats, and they’re hoarded away in pebbles that bathe his room in a array of soft, gentle light when he asks them to - technically, they’re magic lamps that anyone could use. Part of him is just scared of the dark and lonely, and the holographic scenes make him feels less alone somehow.

Dan closes his eyes and sighs. As always, there’s a potion that needs brewing, an attic to clean, herbs to order, and clients to satisfy.

A screech reverberates next to his ear, then a weight clamps onto his shoulder, and Dan jumps, not for the first time that day.

Dan nearly rolls off his chair. Torin only sways on his shoulder, undeterred in his mission to blow a foghorn in Dan’s ear. “Torin! I told you to stop scaring me like that,” Dan exclaims, despite saying that every time he closes his eyes.

Dan slumps back down with a huff, eyes slipping closed, and strokes his phoenix’s sleek feathers anyway.

Torin nudges his nose. Dan opens his eyes to Torin staring him down.

“Am I not enough for you anymore?”

When Dan closes his eyes again, Torin chirps in disapproval, then starts pulling his hair.

“Ow! That hurt. What has gotten into you, you demon? Are you trying to make a nest?” Bringing a hand to rub at his head, he looks worriedly at the phoenix, who’s jerking his head and flapping his wings as if he were trying to haul Dan up himself by his shirt collar.

“Careful, mister, I just got these a week ago,” Dan says, standing up with a grunt to hide his pounding heart. Whatever has Torin in a frenzy is bound to terrify Dan. His phoenix is usually the calm one; Dan panics enough for both of them.

There’s a look in Torin’s eye that holds more anxiety than any bird ought to feel. Dan’s not one to judge.

He jogs after shrill caws that lead him across the floor and out the back entrance.

Dan throws the door open.

He screams and clutches his chest.

“God fuck.”

Splayed in front of a grapevine is a humanoid with horns of an antelope. It looks less than intimidating as its wings, riddled by a labyrinth of midnight blue trails, are wrapped brokenly around a torso covered only by a tattered brown cloth. It lays motionless, eyes closed, except for a faint up and down of its bloody chest.

Liverworts and ferns that had been springing with life are now weighed down by a trail of black blood, trampled by the creature that bore it.

Fear ignites in his stomach.

Dan has seen - fought, summoned, banished, been with - many creatures, but he’s never seen any as ethereal as this one.

Yet, there is only one creature he’s ever known to have black blood - demons. Dan usually banishes demons straight away on the rare occasion that he encounters one. Banishing them doesn’t kill them, but it’s the easiest option and stalls them in their dimension for centuries before they make their dreaded return.

Torin chirps and settles on the roof. At least someone will know if Dan dies after foolishly letting his guard down to evaluate a demon’s injuries.

He treads lightly slowly toward the demon, wary it - or worse, another demon - might lunge toward him at any moment.

“I could literally kill you if you even twitch your wing, so please don’t try--”

Dan deflates, close enough to see the demon is in no shape to fight, let alone wake up. He extends a hand, focusing tendrils of magic on the limp body. It takes little effort and little proximity for him to immediately detect injuries that make him glad he doesn’t have wings and almost make his body ache with the desire to pass out himself.

But he won’t let himself feel sorry for a bloody demon. Literally.

It would be so easy to conjure up a spell or a ward to hold off the...thing that lay before him. It’s what he has done without a thought for the last few hundred years of his life. There’s nothing stopping him now. If Dan’s learned one thing from his experiences and demon stories, it’s that demons have an ulterior motive. They’re freakishly good at blending in and appealing to earthens, at garnering their misplaced trust, only to use them to get what they want, be that delivering a message to another demon or a tasty snack, all of which happened to creatures he knows or to Dan himself. Dan doesn’t know what this one’s motive is, injured as it may be.

Except there’s a small part of Dan that is curious about what an injured demon is doing on his doorstep, about the information he could pull out of him. It’s not everyday demons are left to fend in the earthen world half alive.

He huffs. He wasn’t paid to deal with this.

But it’s his flowering garden that’s getting bloodied by demon and he’d feel terrible if he didn’t try something. Though demons are vile, it would also physically distress him to lose another life when he can prevent it.

Torin chirps curiously then settles on his shoulder, apparently having forgiven him.

“Yes, I’ve gone mad, all for a dumb demon. I’ll send it back to where it belongs once I’m done with it.”

Dan makes quick work of levitating it onto a cot. He wrinkles his nose at the blood clotting the fabric as he walks it into the overnight room. The demon is in no condition to hurt him, but Dan doesn’t want to spend a second longer out in the open air that somehow feels more stifling and lifeless than inside.

“So were you offended because I called you a demon or because you were right?”

A beak prods at his curls.

“Of course, you can’t stand being wrong, Mr. Know-it-all.”

By the time Dan finishes clearing infection, setting bones in place, repairing organs, and swapping clothes - that rag was atrocious fashion sense - he’s drained, sweaty, almost glowing from overusing his magic. He couldn’t help but wonder why he put so much effort into someone - no, something - that isn’t his to care for, and more importantly, is part of a group he’s learned to loathe his whole life.

But despite this, Dan is filled with satisfaction and a quiet mind.

The creature that lay before him looks almost peaceful. Hair that had been matted to a bloody forehead sits in a fluffy quiff around its horns. Dan might have thought it was cute if it was anything else.

Dan casts a silencing spell and sets several protective barriers around the cot, and then falls into bed early.

For the first time in a while, Dan sleeps soundly.

Days pass when Dan slips the unconscious demon healing potions in between the odd client trickling through his house, but none end with any other clients in the overnight rooms, for which Dan is immensely relieved. He couldn’t afford the entire village knowing that Daniel Howell is housing a demon, especially if he himself doesn’t even know why.

The demon looks more earthen than anything with each passing day. Whereas its withered wings looked so fragile, they are now sinewy, elegant mosaic. Dan admires the pale soft skin, the striking yet tired face beneath the horns, he reasons, because it’s a testament to his healing skills he was afraid might have gone rusty.

Dan tips a healing potion into the still demon’s lips and wonders what it would think of being held hostage in a warlock’s house, what sort of mischief it might get up to if Dan didn’t have every silencing and protective spell imaginable keeping it in check should it wake up.

On the fourth day, Dan doesn’t have to wonder.

He wants to say he’s prepared when he sees eyes already trained on him when he enters the overnight room, but the way he stumbles and nearly drops the demon’s daily healing potion says otherwise.

“F-” Dan clutches the door frame too tightly.

The demon is sitting and fixes him with a steely gaze like a predator would its prey, as if Dan were the one trapped instead of Phil. Or maybe Dan’s just paranoid.

He treads slowly, clutching the potion flask with a deathgrip. All the while, the demon never drops his gaze. Dan is petrified of looking anywhere but the shocking blue eyes that complement his healing wings. If Dan noticed, it was because he spent so long mending lacerations to his wings.

Dan finally set down the potion from his shaky hands onto the nightstand, sending himself a mental reminder to put it back into storage.

He extends a hand. Right before he goes to unsilence the demon, a the sliver of panic crosses the demon’s face and its wings swing open. it grimaces when the wings fold against an invisible barrier.

“Relax, I won’t hurt you,” he says, more softly than intended.

Dan can’t help seeing a depth to the demon’s eyes that he hates to admit is getting to him, tricking him into seeing eyes that could hold more emotion than the psychopathy of every demon he’s met so far, eyes that makes him want to care. Along with his wings that have retracted into his back (though it must hurt to do that so fast and so soon after being healed), those eyes are saying, “I’m scared and confused.”

Dan shakes his head. He can’t pinpoint why this one looks so different, so lost. It acts the part of a human so well, but Dan knows better than to read into that. Already, Dan shows himself to be weak, and there is not chance he’ll hand himself over as an easy target. If there was ever an opportunity to get an upper hand on the situation, Dan had just gone and lost it.

Steeling himself, Dan says coldly, “You’re lucky I’m only restoring your voice, demon, don’t bother with the long faced act,” Dan clenches his jaw, determined not to show the guilt that washes over him halfway through speaking.

When any remaining expression on the demon’s face is immediately wiped away, Dan grinds his teeth painfully hard and extends a tense arm to unsilence it before he can second-guess himself. He won’t give the demon any more satisfaction that he’s in any way affected by how real the demon’s expressions were.

Both of them are stood stock-still during the split second it takes to restore the demon’s voice. The tension is constricting, suspending them in a staring contest that lasts even after Dan lowers his too-stiff arm.

Interesting. Demons usually try to make pleasant conversation as soon as their target first notices them, but this one just stares blankly back with wide eyes. Dan definitely is not staring back hard enough to notice that he’s lost a staring contest to a demon.

“So,” Dan says stupidly.

“So,” it parrots immediately, expression unreadable. Dan crosses his arms.

He isn’t prepared for the richness of its voice that smooths over him like his weighted blanket.

It doesn’t help that the demon is scooting in his direction to stop its recovering wings from pushing against the pillow and Dan still hasn’t replied, words stuck in his throat as forearms dig into the mattress and hips shift under the sheets.

Dan suppresses a groan. Unless he tries harder to keep from succumbing to its charm, he’s  going to have one hell of a time getting to the bottom of this investigation, if he can even call it that.

He is a professional, he chants to himself. He is desensitized by seeing clients in bed, and this should be no different. It can’t be different for many reasons.

When Dan finally tears his eyes upward, the worst part is that he can’t tell if the demon is trying to get a reaction out of him--its face is scrunching in discomfort, apparently oblivious to Dan’s ogling.

Fine. It can squirm all it wants, is what his last three seconds of resolve allows him to think.

Fuck it. As much as he takes pride in being in a position of power over a demon, the healer in him twinges in sympathy.

“If I were you, I’d keep my wings still if I wanted to keep them on my back.”

He watches with faint amusement as the demon reaches up with its own hand to itch its wings, marvelling at the sort of lateral thinking that is making him suspect this isn’t all an act.

“Easy for you to say.” The demon grimaces. “You haven’t had your wings torn to shreds,” it grunts as it contorts a shoulder to reach higher, “and healed at an abnormally high rate,” it switches its hands, “so excuse me if I’ve got an itch to scratch.” It gives a final rolls its shoulders before turning his attention on him. Even then, the cot jiggles as he shifts around.

Their wings won’t actually fall off, Dan’s made sure of that. Dan is certain that the new wing tissue is nicely integrated with the existing wing structure because he spent the last three evenings scanning thoroughly over the wings as they started to seal over, a meticulous job he’s not a afraid to admit is done well.

On second thought, maybe there’s something to be said about how he’s no closer to ordering those herbs than he was a few days ago, but he’d rather tuck that thought into a box and shove it in the dusty attic of his brain for all he cares--there’s an attic he should also clean. Dammit.

“Deal with it. You’re not the one who regenerated all that tissue yourself.”

“Who did? Satan?” Its eyes are starting to droop, and it just looks tired and weary now, like someone who’s older than they’re meant to be.

“I think you would know better than anyone in this world if that were the case.” Its mouth opens and closes like it’s about to say something. Recognition, then confusion passes over its face. He knows that Dan knows he’s a demon.

“Not anyone,” the demon mumbles.

“What d’you mean?”

“Why do you care?” There’s a defensive glint in its eyes. It presses a hand against its side. Dan remembers how close it’d been to death from that injury alone.

Dan pauses.

“Why do you think I spent so much time healing you?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was dead. Am I just a stray pet? Hostage?” It smiles grimly, looking less than thrilled to be awake.

“Mainly the latter, yes. A prisoner, if you will.”

“Well, thank you for taking me in. Healing me.”

“You’re welcome. You know I’m just going to ask you more about why you trespassed on my yard then send you back to your dimension? So don’t try any funny business on me.”

It nods. “Noted.”

An grumble sounds loud enough that it travels around the wooden walls.

“Sorry,” it says sheepishly.

“Eager to eat me, are you?” Dan ignores the double meaning because it could very well be true in a literal sense. Probably not. He doesn’t know what demons get up to in their spare time.

It runs a look up and down him agonizingly slowly, and Dan regrets opening his mouth.

Dan shouldn’t be in a position where he feels like the one who’s the one being held hostage, but somehow it does.

“Starving.” It grins, shifting around in the cot again to get comfortable.

Dan blushes.

“Sorry, ‘m not on the menu today. I hope you don’t go eating every creature you see.”

The demon brings a hand up to its quiff, arranging strands.

“I mean, sometimes you wanna stick them in your mouth whole and swallow them, you know?” it says with an impressively innocent face.

“You are aware that I can make you chew off your own horns to keep you silent?” It’s too much effort, but the principle still stands.

The hand that had been fiddling with the quiff drops, and the demon’s face is almost frustratingly neutral.

Dan needs to work on being intimidating. Flirting with a cannibalistic demon is certainly not the way to go about it.

“Hey, it’s an actual urge.” Dan can’t tell if it’s serious, and he doesn’t want to find out.

“Whatever you say.” Dan has to stop letting the demon changing the subject and distracting him in more ways than one. He can’t deny that if he’s going to get the blasted demon to talk, he’ll at least let it eat and sleep so it doesn’t faint in the process of Dan taking to it.

It also takes the same amount of effort to cook for himself and someone else, not that cooking as a warlock requires much legwork at all. And it’s what he normally does for overnight clients. Not that there’s anything special about this one. In fact, it’s not a client at all. Dan doesn’t owe it any client protection.

“I’ll give you food if you promise to behave.”

“Yes doc,” he says.

Dan turns around before he can say anything else stupid and pads down the stairs to the kitchen.

He lets out a deep breath when he sets foot on even ground.

Instead of summoning the ingredients to himself like usual, he busies himself with cupboards and lazy susans, gas marks, knives, and spoons, hoping he can lose himself in the methodical act of cooking.

Still, he finds himself thinking of blue eyes, an easy smirk, and how he doesn’t know how to act when he’s meant to be holding hostage someone so cheeky.

And it’s simply a coincidence that he collects what he needs to make his go-to meal for whenever he’s had a trying day of work.

Dan’s stirring when Torin lands on his shoulder and headbutts his cheek.

“I know I look like I’ve seen a demon. I bloody well have. Pale as a ghost, that one.”

Dan scoops up a chunk of uncooked brew. With a quick snap of a neck, Torin snatches up the chicken as soon as the ladle is within reach.

“You just wanted food, I see how it is.”

Torin toddles closer to the curve of his neck and headbutts him again in a disagreement and keeps its head there.

Dan smiles lightly.

“What am I going to with it?”

“I’ll have to face it.”

“Now shoo, shoo. I’ve got a demon to confront.”

Torin pecks his hair.

“It’s not a duel.” but I have to be on guard and I’ve feel like already thrown away all my defenses before the fight has started, is what he doesn’t say.

Dan carefully spoons the soup into two bowls.

He moves slowly and silently up the stairs, each step bringing him closer, trying to focus only on not dropping the bowls and not of how the intense the demon’s piercing look will be.

When his eyes clear the top step, the demon’s eyes are closed, its face scrunched in concentration. Its side is leaning against the headrest, testing wings that spread out halfway across empty space. They sweep inward and outward slowly.

He could be a striking angel.

“Did I forget to tell you to not move your wings?”

It jumps. “Ah!” it squeals, high-pitched and slightly adorable.

Not it’s the demon’s turn to startle. Serves it right.

“You scared me.”

“Come on, I wasn’t even trying to scare you.”

It turns, shifting around to face Dan and the end of the cot head-on.

The demon’s eyes light up visibly when it sees the bowls of food, and it’s like the sight of food gave him a shot of caffeine straight to his bloodstream.

“You brought food!”

“Who said it’s for you?” Dan tries to keep a smile out of his voice as he sets them down beside him.

“The two bowls that are taunting me.”

Dan is happy to see its wings are pulsing in and out almost of their own volition and it seems to have forgotten the ache in its side.

“You can have one if,” he pauses, “you tell me your name.”

“Call me Phil,” he mutters quickly.

“Hm?”

“Phil.”

“Phil. That’s a very human name.”

“My real name is actually-” out of his mouth comes a spitting noise then a wolf-like howl.

“It is not!” Dan counters indignantly, voice rising in pitch. Dan turns his head into his shoulder, pretending to check the doorway, to stop a smile from taking over his face.

“Oh sorry. That’s the sound my stomach starts making when I’m so hungry I have to eat you.”

Dan is smiling softly at Phil before he catches himself, shaking his head in amusement but levitating a bowl up and through the ward.

“Ok,  _ Phil _ , you’ve answered my first question so I’ll tolerate that just this once.” If Dan weren’t concentrating so hard on not dropping the bowl, he’d be pointing his finger at Phil in accusation.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phil says, his eyes tracking the bowl that’s floating towards his head.

Neither of them are taking themselves seriously, and Dan’s worrying about how that’ll play out later on when he needs to calm the part of his brain that wants to run off and talk to this demon, get to know it and get to the reason why Phil is in the overnight room in the first place.

He’s also worrying about why conversation feels so easy when they haven’t properly talked about anything.

Dan guides the bowl down once it’s over Phil’s thighs.

Phil reaches up eagerly to grab at the bowl when it’s level with his chest and his arms are bent.

“It’s so warm!” Phil cradles it to his chest.

“Have you never had a hot meal before? Do you eat icebergs in your demon dimension?”

“No.” No. Who in their right mind has never tried the likes of chicken soup? Pizza? Phil leaves it at that, gingerly picking up the fork and stabbing a chunk of something.

“So what do you eat in demon land?”

“Whatever’s lying around.”

Dan gets an idea that maybe Phil doesn’t want to talk about his home. He’ll find out when Phil is properly fed.

Phil bites down. Dan picks up his own dinner, pretending not to watch Phil’s reaction as closely as he is.”

“This is good,” he says, voice rising at the end.

Dan is secretly pleased. He tells himself he isn’t looking for approval on Phil’s face.

Phil starts shoveling food into his mouth at an alarming speed.

“I’m sure food tastes good after going more than three days without it.”

“I’ve been out for three days?”

“Something like that, so take it easy if you wanna keep the food down.”

“No wonder. I could eat a nymph right now.” Phil doesn’t slow down, scarfing down food right until the bowl is scraped clean.

Dan’s own bowl is two thirds full. He’s been too busy watching Phil eat to do his own eating.

“How about seconds?” He’s excusing the delight in the demon’s face, looking at him like he’s a savior for not having eaten for so long and not because the demon is grateful Dan thought to offer him more when he didn’t need to.

“Always,” Phil says.

Dan’s treacherous brain provides him with the image of bringing Phil breakfast in bed and he vows to banish it like he’ll banish Phil soon.

“Then tell me what you last saw before waking up here.”

Phil pauses.

“I-I can’t remember. It’s a blur,” Phil’s eyes glaze over in concentration.

“Were you at least in the earthen world?”

“I saw a lot of green. It was like someone puked radioactive slime in a lagoon and grew green nostrils. I don’t know. Demon dimension lagoons are weird man.”

“You’re weird, Phil,” Dan says. He doesn’t mean it in a mean it in a mean spirited way either.

Dan is saving the harder questions when Phil isn’t distracted by food. Might as well feed them so it can talk.

“Do you actually not remember?”

“No, I don’t even know if that was a weird dream or a memory between me being knocked out.”

“But you’re saying someone else made the decision to bring you out of your dimension?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.”

“Let go of your bowl?”

“Thank you, kind being.”

“Dan.”

“Thank you, Dan.”

Dan collects their dishes, heading to the kitchen once again to warm up the food, for one person this time.

He return to a Phil that’s now fully lying down.

“I think you poisoned me with that food, Dan. I’m going to die a peaceful death. It was nice knowing you.”

“You’ve been sleeping for days.”

“A few days is nothing. I’m going to sleep forever.”

“And skip out on the food I just heated up?”

Phil’s eyes brighten.

“I suppose one more meal can’t do any more damage,” Phil half slurs.

Dan absolutely shouldn’t find his eyes half-lidded with exhaustion endearing, shouldn’t give into him so easily. The demon will surely take advantage of a pushover. It already has. But this roundabout plan to lull the demon--Phil--into a false sense of security before banishing it will surely pay off in the end.

If Phil’s pretending to play nice, so can Dan. Although Phil doesn’t need to know that Dan isn’t fully pretending.

“Can I trust you to stay alive long enough to hold your food?”

“Yes. The poison is slow-acting for a big boy like me.”

Unlike the first helping, Phil eats this one sluggishly, and Dan pretends to pace the room.

Funnily enough, Dan ends up having to rescue the tipping bowl--blessedly covered in the last dregs of food--with the agility Torin uses to snitch food off of Dan because Phil actually falls asleep.

Dan can’t believe him. He also thinks absentmindedly that his levitating skills could do with a workout.

“Phil, you awake?”

Nothing.

Dan takes a breath before extending a hand, removing the several protective barriers before stepping beside the bed. He feels like a creep for waiting until Phil was asleep, but he’s not risking taking down the wards and becoming demon bait after his first conversation with it.

He lays a hand an inch above a wing and starts smoothing over the rest of the kinks he was meant to before Phil woke up.

If he has to say why spends longer poring over each inch of healing wing tissue, it’s because he wants to make sure Phil’s not distracted by itchy wings to talk.

Dan isn’t sure why he feels guilty when he leaves him with only two novels before he rebuilds the barriers and casts a silencing spell on a serene Phil. It’s the very least he could do for his own safety. (Dan tells himself that he’ll let Phil talk as long as Dan is there to make sure he doesn’t go hollering around announcing his presence.)

Dan goes to sleep that night with heavy limbs. He finds it worrying there’s satisfaction in his gut when there’s still hardly any answers to be found.

Naturally, Dan forgets about his morning client and wakes with a knock on his front door he hears all the way from his room.

“Fuck!”

He scrambles out of his blanket cocoon, pushing holographic yew tree branches out of his way. A shimmering branch comes to whack him through the face, and Dan really feels like someone put a branch to his brain for how fast the blood rushes out of his head when he stands up.

It’s against his moral code as a work-from-home warlock to schedule any appointments with clients until at least six hours after the sun rises. But he wants to get them over with now that he’s got a demon to tend to.

He tries to ignore the fact that the last time he himself scheduled anything this early, the Victorians were making a statement out of his baggy clothing, and convinces himself that this time, he has a legitimate reason for pushing the appointment forward.

He throws the first clean piece of clothing he can find over his head without checking to see if it’s on backwards, before racing down the stairs, only slowing once he’s within earshot of the wood nymph that’s probably been knocking on the door in frustration for who knows how long. And God, why is he thinking about eating and wood nymphs and the upstairs demon now?

He probably looks a right mess when he thrusts open the door, indeed revealing a stony-eyed wood nymph other side of the door.

“May, I am SO sorry I kept you waiting. I couldn’t hear you knocking from upstairs. Please come in.” Technically true.

May looks at him with nothing short of appraisal, and Dan could sink through the floor.

Dan is usually professional, he swears.

He’s finding it hard to redeem his bad start to the day as he spends hours asking after the nymph’s history, going methodically through every non-invasive spell he can think of trying to get a lead on the source behind the curse. Eventually he does, but breaking the curse itself lies in another league and the thought makes him dizzy, that this curse breaking might take a while.

Lunch is absentmindedly set to boil while he works. May’s nerves are getting to him.

Neither of them are happy about the potentially risky spells Dan might have to use.

Eventually, they call for a break. May’s bought her own lunch, as if she anticipated Dan taking this long.

Dan tries, he really does. There’s no doubt that they’re both tired and frustrated, restless at the lack of progress.

It’s nothing he hasn’t handled before, really. He’s gone years trying to solve a client’s curse, though the feeling of annoyance, obsession over solving the case never fades when the curses go unsolved.

His head hurts and why he’s wanting to slip upstairs is probably from the intense concentration he’s been pouring into this case, but May breaking the silence with, “ I should let my partner know I’m going to be here a while,” nearly gives him the excuse to escape upstairs.

What actually gives him the excuse is his realization that he’s stashed some old spell books upstairs that might help May.

He brings a bowl up to Phil, who eagerly eyes Dan floating the bowl toward him wordlessly

“ _ My saviour,”  _ Phil mouths, grinning. He’s evidently bored. The two books Dan left on the nightstand (one ironically about a demon horror story) are only so entertaining.

All he wants to do is to return the grin, talk to Phil, talk to him about his fail this morning, about the spells he’s tried. Dan’s just lonely of course, and Torin is out hunting.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “Don’t get used to it. I’ll be busy today.” He swears Phil’s bright eyes dim a little, but Dan sets off toward his room before he can make sense of the reaction, before he can crawl back and apologize. He shouldn’t let Phil have effect on him, like he’s the one charming Dan, and Phil’s hasn’t spent enough time on him to try anything.

There’s a whole stack of books he levitates out of his room that stands as tall as the length from his hips to his head.

He passes the overnight room and glance through the doorway and has to concentrate hard on keeping the stack intact.

“ _ I can help you with those _ ,” Phil enunciates. The lack of silence probably bothers Dan more than Phil. Who in their right mind after recovering from the brink of death would offer to help move books?

“Oh no, please, don’t. Did you remember the part where you’re injured or that I’m keeping you hostage in a barrier?” But Dan filling the silence with this destruction is even worse. The overt condescension sits badly on his mouth, but Dan needs to work on being intimidating, or preventing Phil from getting comfortable leaning on Dan, but more preventing himself from leaning on Phil.

He hurries downstairs as fast as he can when he’s staring at the title, “Bryophytes for the head,” eager to live outside the guilt for the afternoon, to quell the tightness building in his throat.

“Bromeliads and the brain” sticks out from the middle of the stack and he forces it back into place too fast, the whole structure wobbling. It feels like a metaphor he can’t place.

May’s fireball is glowing outside his window, the indistinct murmurs are a calm contrast to upstairs. Ironic that just a few minutes ago, he’d been dying to hurry upstairs.

Dan huffs, rearranging the stack with a swirl, managing to somehow land them all in line on the table in orderly rows and columns. He opens the book in the upper left corner and starts reading scanning the first of many books.

Miraculously, he seems find something halfway through his perusal. It would take days for the spell and potion to work, would leave May severely weakened, bedridden, while the magic was working its way in and pesky curse dissipated out. Speeding up the process would be like scrambling eggs--irreversible, unable to be unscrambled, succeeding only in blending a cure into a curse.

But when Dan tells her about the cure and its potential effects, May insists the risk is worth it.

And so May makes more calls while Dan finds himself fixing dinner for him, May, and Phil, and Phil, oh shit.

He needs to get a bed ready for May, a bed that’s currently in the same room as a the demon he’s keeping on lockdown. He blames the early start of the day for his mind slip.

Dan races up the stairs, unwilling to keep May waiting a second time. “I’m a, fucking, idiot,” he mutters with bated breath.

There’s no way a demon can be trusted to be in contact with another earthen, especially not in a his house, at least not when he has somewhat of a reputation for being relentless when it comes banishing demons without giving them a chance to speak.

She’d figure out soon enough why there’s a silencing spell on Phil, why there’s a black glow under his skin.

It appears he’s about to be roommates with a demon.

Dan sets his face into a hard line and braces himself for what he’ll see. A sleeping Phil, a bored out of his mind Phil, a Phil who’s listening raptly to every thump of the stairs, even an angry Phil.

He doesn’t expect dull blue eyes and thin lips to greet him, and it’s probably not just because he’s probably expecting dinner now.

Dan tries to will his breathing down. He can’t let Phil know how desperate he is to move him out of the room.

“I’m moving you to another room for tonight. Can you walk with me?” Dan asks softly, walking as calmly as he can until he’s against the invisible wall separating them.

Phil challenges him with a lengthy stare, eyebrows pinched, trying to gauge his tone. Dan feels like he’s the one that’s been muted, that he’s somehow betrayed someone that could very well turn the tables on him.

“This isn’t a trick question, you can say no if you’re not well enough,” Dan adds.

Dan wishes he could cast a spell to make their conversation silent to everyone, to give them a fair chance to talk, because he doesn’t much like talking down to people, especially when they can’t defend themselves on equal ground, often in the most powerful way they can - through words. Though he’s reminded of he’d just gone and done that this afternoon and ran away without resolving it. But the physical barriers Dan put up prevent him from inserting himself into silent conversation.

“Let’s start with this: Are you physically well enough to stand up?”

A beat of hesitation, then Phil nods slowly, keeping his eyes on Dan.

“How about walking left out this door and down a hallway the length of this room. Can you do that?” It would save him a lot of curse breaking energy if Phil could walk.

Phil is quick to nod a second time, almost too quick, too jerky.

“I promise you and your bed are only going to see a change of scenery tonight. Can I walk you there right now? I’ll bring you dinner once you’re settled in.” Dan pushes away unwelcome disappointment when Phil looks away right after he nods.

“Let’s go.”

Phil drags his legs until they’re dangling over the side of the bed. It seems to take more effort than it’s worth. Wings swoop open and closed as he pushes himself onto shaky limbs like a baby centaur taking its first steps, though its forehead creases with wrinkles, throat tensing, as if he were trying to bring himself forward using his neck rather than the rest of his body.

“That’s it,” Dan encourages.

Phil lumbers, slowly toward the door, the barrier following Phil while Dan eyes him closely. Something feels off; there’s a sharp hunch in his back like his body is tugging him down but his determination is driving him to walk.

Dan finds out just before Phil clears the doorway what really is wrong when Phil stumbles, clutching his side and now, it’s Phil he has to keep from tipping over instead of a ratched bowl.

It’s proximity that Dan blames for how he reaches with his own hands through the barrier to catch Phil around the shoulders before he can think to break the fall with magic.

Phil looks helpless, frightened, like he’s not in his own skin, overwhelmed in general, shocked. It’s the most emotion he’s seen from Phil, and Dan just wants to wish that look away, And fuck, Dan is an ass for putting his own baseless worries of saving energy before someone who was hurting more than him to begin with, so much that it took a big effort to simply stand up, for not seeing the signs of stubbornness sooner. He should have seen Phil was putting on a tough face, should have known his side hasn’t healed, that his legs haven’t borne weight for days.

“You said you could walk!” Fear and anger raise his voice.

He hopes that he’s not the direct source of this stubbornness.

Oh, but he is, he’s a stage man treating Phil like his circus animal, coaxing it from cage to cage after lashing out at it but a few hours ago.

“I thought I could,” Phil says weakly, voice resonating in Dan’s ears. And only then does he realize that he’s subconsciously given Phil his voice back. Dan swears he hears self-loathing in his voice.

This is bad. Losing control of his magic, losing the physical barrier between them against conscious will is bad because there’s possibility that there’s been an emotional barrier that’s replaced it, keeping him from doing what he does best.

Dan summons Phil’s cot from the overnight room as fast as he can with his arms wrapped around Phil then levitates Phil onto it with all the gentleness he can muster. It would be superfluous to put more barriers and silencers up again, not when Phil can hardly stand up or shout in pain.

“I’m going to come over and check your side, okay?”

Phil nods weakly.

“Tap this wrist twice or tell me if you want me to stop.” Dan isn’t thinking straight and is relying on muscle memory to heal, something he always tries to avoid.

Dan places one hand against the curve of his waist to start. Phil starts to flinch away from him on instinct, but pain overtakes the fear on his face at the motion.

“I’ll be over faster if you stay still, yeah?” Dan steadies Phil’s torso, placing his trembling free hand against Phil’s hip.

Dan finds out with a feather light tracing (the fact that he can detect it so easily without pressing at all tells him immediately that the injury is still bad) that the demon had been walking through multiple organs that started internally bleeding, and oh God, it doesn’t matter that the blood that runs through Phil’s veins are black, just that the blood doesn’t flow outside the vessels. And that Phil doesn’t see how scared Dan really is because he can’t show how much he feels responsible that Phil’s in more pain and too stubborn to walk it off.

Dan does his best to focus on the task at hand, but it hurts that Phil lies limp as his eyes bore into him, half with horror and defeat. Dan knows it shouldn’t hurt, but Dan feels worse than when he went to unsilence Phil and Phil recoiled because this time, it feels like Phil is submitting to Dan, letting Dan dangle him around like a puppet master. And it feels like this is probably what Phil wants Dan to think, wants him to feel so he can better take advantage of him.

Dan takes longer to seal the worst of the tissue than he normally would, but it everything works out fine in the end. Even if he has to close his eyes and take a breath to compose himself before he removes his hand from Phil’s side, even if he drags his hand away marginally too late, too slowly.

“Sorry,” Dan whispers to the ground. He doesn’t know what exactly for. Everything, he supposes. Sorry for letting you fall, sorry for snapping at you, sorry for being self-absorbed, sorry for caring when he shouldn’t, sorry for things he can’t afford to say to you, not when he’s hardly talked to him, not when Phil is a demon.

Before Dan can pull away completely, Phil taps his wrist twice.

Dan whips his head to him in confusion. Surely Phil would have done that sooner when Dan was actually pulling at his organs.

“Stop fretting.”

Dan thinks back to what he said. “ _ Tap this wrist twice or tell me if you want me to stop _ ,” and oh.

The fact that Phil picks up on his state enough to say that to him, to tell him to stop worrying, snaps Dan out of his trance. It sounds like Phil is saying this for his benefit, and it only reminds him of how vulnerable he is, how Phil already has more leverage over him than he can know - Dan never meant for someone’s words to be used against him like this. He schools his expression into something more manageable and depresses the other part of him that calls Phil’s act as considerate, kind. Demons don’t feel empathy.

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Dan says resolutely. “I told you I’d be busy today.”

Phil gives him the slightest smile without arguing, and Dan’s chest constricts. He doesn’t know what to think anymore. Who is this demon and why does it look like he’s seeing right through Dan, comforting him when he expected anger or indifference?

“I know,” Phil says. Dan doesn’t know which part he’s responding to, doesn’t know if Phil really believes either thing he says.

But Dan still feels the weight of the scathing remarks he left Phil earlier that afternoon, how Phil seems to be hardly affected by them now, while Dan still feels like he needs to sprint out the room to shake off the guilt. Again. His goal was to distance himself from caring while getting Phil to trust him enough to talk and he’s only succeeding in doing the opposite, in hurting himself and others.

Dan starts levitating Phil before he can pursue that train of thought. “I really do need to be somewhere, so let’s get you out of this room. Preferably without you straining and spewing blood all over your insides.”

“Why make me walk if you can magic me places?”

“Less work for me.” That’s the simple truth. And if he wants to avoid feeling like someone’s tracing a knife tip against the seams in his own armour, it’s the answer he wants Phil to hear.

Dan follows Phil, now with a cot supporting him instead of his two giraffe legs, towards his room.

As they pass his doorway, Phil gasps, bending his head this way and that to take in the change of scene - this time, holographic birds hover above blades of swaying grass on the bookshelf, a miniature seal turns round and round by the ceiling. Dan tries to pretend he’s not pleased at the reaction.

“Can you, hypothetically, magic food up here?” Phil asks, as if Dan’s not already in the process of summoning dinner and a night table to Phil before saying,

“I’m not sure you’ve earned a meal today since you didn’t walk to the other side like I asked, but since you were injured and all-” Dan gestures with a flourish to the perfectly timed arrival of the nightstand and food, “-I’ll leave you to it.”

Dan is fairly sure they both know that he’s bluffing about Phil needing to earn a meal, and it scares him a little.

“Thank you,” Phil says, seemingly pleased that his voice is still working.

Until Dan puts a hand up to silence him and feels bad all over again.

“If anyone finds you, you’re my secret cousin,” Dan says before turning on his heel to push what he just said to the back of his brain forever. And to start breaking a tricky curse of course.

Somehow, Dan makes it downstairs before May finishes her call. He’s relieved he doesn’t need another ill-timed entrance to risk having the person who’s trusting him with her life thinking any less of him.

Torin pops in and out of the kitchen until Dan has to ask him to leave until he’s done with the night’s job.

Dan keeps his dinner down somehow, for which he’s grateful because he needs the proper meal to give him the energy to concentrate on getting the procedure right, on being precise and thorough when it matters. (And to distract himself from how he left Phil hanging, or just Phil in general.)

His heart beats faster than normal with nervous energy and his hands are more shaky than they used to be a decade ago the last time he tried a new treatment this tricky, but he deems the operation a success after the tense critical period of letting the magic and spells settle in just right. First thing in the morning, Dan will check the magic’s progress. There’s really nothing to do on his part but wait for the magic to run its course. The nymph stays overnight waiting for a curse to be broken. Phil stays overnight counting down the days until Dan inevitably banishes him.

Dan delays going into his own room for as long as possible while he gets ready for bed.

When Dan slowly opens the door to his room and turns on bright light, it’s to Phil sitting up, squinting blearily, then immediately mouthing “Secret cousin?” and grinning the moment they make eye contact.

Dan groans. He hopes that Phil isn’t going to hold that one against him for much longer.

At least Phil is teasing him this time instead of facing him with the blank stare that haunted him earlier. He’s curious about the faces Phil will put on for him when he comes upstairs; it’s a guessing game that scares him more than he cares to admit.

“Shut up and let me sleep it off, I’ll come up with a better cover tomorrow morning,” Dan says even though sleep is far off tonight, not that he’d expect any different. He’s wired up, thrumming with adrenaline and nervous energy that heightens his senses every time he’s in charge of someone else, every time they rely on him to do a good job of it.

Phil glares at him but his horns intimidate him more than they could ever enhance his glare. That is to say, he’s not intimidating at all.

Dan stares blankly back, fighting the urge to stick out his tongue. “Your judgement is loud.”  

Dan crosses the room to look for his discarded pajamas bottoms from the morning. He has to walk the entire periphery of the bed to find them in a messy heap by his own bedside drawer.

He’s used up enough magic and mental energy for the day, enough that he can’t trust himself to ask Phil anything important and stay impartial. He shucks off his shirt, throwing it in the general direction of the growing laundry pile, and it brings him one step closer to working off the residual energy that will hopefully dissipate soon. While he’s too lazy to even cast a spell to do the laundry, he’s too energetic to sit still, much less sleep.

Dan has one leg out of his trousers, is in the middle of wrestling the other pant leg off is other foot when it dawns on him in his adrenaline-filled state that this is probably not how one normally behaves in front of a hostage. Then again, there are several things that make this rearrangement far out of the ordinary, and if Dan doesn’t have the energy to think about those things after a good night’s rest, he certainly doesn’t now.

Dan tries not to make a show of looking up but Phil is already staring at him, and Dan’s eyes immediately lock onto Phil's. It's hard to avoid the gaze that burns him with its intensity as Phil takes in his naked torso and his likely dumbstruck expression and really looks. Dan is frozen in place, stuck between wanting to crumple like a sack of potatoes beside the bed and wanting to study the way Phil is leaning slightly in Dan’s direction as if he’s unaware he’s doing it, the way his lips are bowed in an almost-smile. The last part wins out as Dan’s mouth unconsciously parts and he continues to stare. Dan feels like he's not being picked apart or even about to be mauled, but rather seen and terribly exposed.

“You’re staring,” Dan croaks.

And Phil actually has the gal to blush and flutter his wings in rapid light motions like he doesn’t know what he’s doing (and doesn’t know what he’s doing to Dan).

Phil mouths, “You’re the most interesting thing in this room,” grinning sarcastically, and Dan wishes he could have heard what Phil’s voice sounded like.

Dan blames his adrenaline for why he watches a wide-eyed Phil out of the corner of his eye while he whips off his pants, throwing them with the rest of the laundry, then puts his pajama pants on.

“You flatter me, Phil.” Dan faces Phil, fighting a smirk as Phil closes his eyes, palms the sheets,  and rights himself to face the holographic seal like he’s ending that line of conversation.

Although Dan doesn’t miss how he winces slightly from the stretching and contraction of his core to center his body. Dan should probably make sure that Phil isn’t going to reverse his recovery process by thrashing around, even if Phil is acting like nothing hurts too badly. In fact, Phil’s stubbornness to walk until he fell gives him all the more reason to check up. Plus, Dan might fall asleep faster if he uses magic to scan over Phil’s injuries.

“Before you go back to sleep, can I ask you something?”

Phil gives him a dubious nod.

“Do I have your permission to check on your healing? I’ll have to touch you to do that but I probably won’t use any more force than you use to hold one of those books up.”

There’s a small pause before Phil nods, his face giving nothing away.

“Okay, I’m coming over. I’m trusting you not to ram me with your horns.”

Dan rolls over his bed to the side with Phil’s cot.

Phil watches him curiously, eyebrows raised, as he disassembles the protective barrier and the silencing spell and walks against Phil’s cot. Dan is aware as ever of how reckless he’s being in entering a demon’s space mentally tired without any protection on himself except a pair of very non-magical pajama pants. He’s not so aware as to why he doesn’t feel the vulnerability that would drive his desire to cover up better.

“Do you want me to put a shirt on?”

Phil startles, eyes flitting between his chest and eyes.

“Uh, no, you’re all okay,” Phil says in a rush.

“You can lie down if you want. Or I can, uh, start by looking at your wings and back. Then you won’t need to sit back up properly again.” Dan could make him turn onto his stomach; it would be easier for Dan, but that would probably do more damage than good.

“I don’t think I could get back up if I laid down,” Phil says goodnaturedly, and Dan convinces himself that silencing Phil was the right choice from the beginning. He didn’t miss Phil’s his soothing voice, he didn’t, and he doesn’t think about how he’s more of a danger to himself than Phil’s freedom of speech is to Dan.

“Fair enough. Can I sit behind you for this part?”

“Yeah,” Phil says softly.

Phil tenses as Dan tosses Phil’s pillow onto his own bed then walks slowly to sit down behind Phil, swinging a leg up to rest atop his cot and letting his left leg rest against the the ground. He’s never this casual with clients, but it’s been a weird day and nothing feels normal anymore.

The only time he physically touched Phil aside from earlier today, his hands were drenched in black blood, Phil’s skin was clammy and cold and slick with his own drying blood, and Phil was near death. After that, when Phil was unconscious, Dan hardly needed to touch him at all, relying mainly on levitation and the potions to do the legwork for him. Tracking the progress of the potions and repairing surface-level injuries was easy enough to do from a distance, safer. It let him read and correct the map of Phil’s body rather than rewriting it himself. Having not given Phil a potion in two days, he has to apply some pressure to skin to not only detect injury but heal it, and the milder the injury, the more pressure he has to use.

Dan is glad Phil can’t see his face from here while he regains what composure he might not have had to begin with.

“Tap my knee twice or tell me if you want me to stop?” Dan echoes from earlier. Phil shivers, resting his palm on the edge of the cot next to Dan’s thigh. Dan doesn’t blame him. Blinding someone to your every move by approaching them from behind can be scary (and inappropriate). And they’re practically the same height sitting down, close enough that his voice goes straight to Phil’s ear.

“Yeah,” Phil breathes.

“‘Kay.”

Dan hovers his hands over Phil’s shoulders. There’d been a tear on one of them, but it’s healed enough that he can only sense something fainter. He ghosts his fingers over them from his shoulders to the nape of his neck, figuring he’d let Phil acclimatize to the touch, but Phil still tenses.

“You good?”

“Yeah, it just tickles a little,” Phil squeaks, shoulders a little raised and tense.

Dan lets his palms rest against his shoulders, and immediately, he can better sense the inflammation, though it’s much weaker than before.

Phil doesn’t relax entirely but his shoulders drop a little.

Dan massages lightly into the recovering muscle and Phil seems to lean back into his hands subconsciously. Dan isn’t even using magic. There’s nothing Dan can really do with his magic on the shoulders that time won’t heal. He has no other purpose for doing this aside from making a demon feel better, something he obviously doesn’t need to do, in fact shouldn’t do, but he can’t bring himself to pull his hands off right away, not when Phil’s breathing more deeply now and seems to be trusting him more.

It’s not because Phil’s skin is soft even through the clothing that separates Dan’s fingers from his skin, or because Phil is making satisfied sounds like he doesn’t realize or doesn’t care.

“Is that better?”

“Much,” Phil confirms.

Dan allows himself a few too many minutes of shoulder rubbing before finally gathers the will to trail his palms downward to where Phil’s wings protrude from his back. It’s still tender there according to what Dan feels when trails a finger down each connective tissue.

“Can you bring your wings up and flap them lightly?”

When he does, the air sways the holographic grass and swooshes against Dan’s chest. Dan detects more supple, settling tendons that are still being forced to support long wings, and wonders if Phil feels any twinges when he even extends them.

“Does it hurt when you bring your wings up or flap them?”

“It doesn’t feel like someone stabbed me in the back or diced my wings into salad anymore, it just feels like when you have a sore muscles from working out too hard.” Anymore. Dan had found out about that part actually happening when he had to re-join a wing that someone could have easily sliced off if the gash was off centre by a smidgen. Dan can easily guess at what  tried to claw his wing off, tear it to pieces.

“Are they still itchy?”

Phil says, “not any more,” to Dan’s satisfaction.

“Good. I don’t need you rolling onto the floor and combusting when I’ve done all this work already.” It’s easy to know when demons die because they disintegrate into dust.

Dan places both hands on each side of the base of Phil’s extended wing.

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” On both the level of healing and aesthetics, Dan is too busy marvelling at how the deep translucent blue of Phil’s wings is growing back nicely in intricate branching patterns and resisting the urge to stroke them to make sense of what Phil’s saying. It’s probably a sign he should sleep.

“Why did you do all this work to save me and spend so much time healing me? Why are you checking me now?” The questions pour out like Phil’s been dying to ask them for a while.

“Whoa, slow down,” Dan chuckles. He continues to press his hands slowly, thoroughly along every inch of wing from the base, outward. It doesn’t even feel like work like it normally does when he checks on a recovering client; it’s relaxing. He’s beginning to learn that nothing about this situation with Phil is normal, though.

Phil shifts on the spot and scratches at the sheets beside him.

“Sorry, I… don’t know why an earthen would ever not, like, kill me or banish me on the spot, so I guess I want to know why you took me in. Not that I’m not grateful or anything because I am. Very grateful,” Phil rambles nervously.

Dan takes his hands away from Phil’s wing and puts a hand on top of Phil’s shoulder, before he can think twice.

Phil stills but relaxes into him like earlier.

Dan kind of wants to keep his hands there but he forces himself to resume examining Phil’s wing. He’s crossed the line into inappropriate territory more times than he can count today, jumping into it on instinct, something he thought he learned how to manage a hundred years ago.

“I thought you’d ask that soon,” Dan says. Dan hasn’t figured out how to properly answer those questions himself but he needs to give Phil an answer so he doesn’t question his motives further.

“I saved you because I think you’re a valuable information source. Which, you know, be prepared for me to ask you questions tomorrow. I’ve just had a few busy days.”

“O-kay,” Phil says, not sounding too convinced by his reasoning. That’s not good.

He takes his hands off Phil’s wing again and places a palm along Phil’s right side, the region he knows probably sustains more damage after Phil reopened the wounds only a few hours ago. Dan planned to do this after finishing with the wings, but if he’s going to prevent Phil from asking him more about his questionable motives, he might as well do it now. Phil’s breathing hitches, perhaps in pain, when Dan trails a hand up his side and confirms to himself that yes, there are many parts that need to be properly repaired. And since Phil admitted his wings are slightly sore, then logically, these fresher wounds that prevented him from walking should be… more sore.

“On a scale from zero to ten, where zero is no pain and ten is the worst pain imaginable, how much pain do you feel in your side where I’m touching?”

“Two,” Phil says after some consideration. Dan hasn’t healed a demon before, but he’d be surprised if their tolerance for pain is significantly higher than other creatures, if their nerves are wired differently. That might explain part of every other demons’ apparent psychopathy, Dan thinks, but combined with Dan’s healing experience so far, that thought doesn’t add up. Which means that there’s something that Phil probably isn’t telling him about his pain.

“And to answer your last question, I’m checking you right now because I want to make sure you won’t collapse when I talk to you tomorrow.”

Dan takes a shot in the dark.

“Because  _ I _ think that you’re a stubborn bastard who won’t tell me if something hurts even if they’re about to pass out,” Dan says firmly but not aggressively, leaning forward to gauge Phil’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. At least, he hopes it doesn’t come off as aggressive.

Phil swallows, eyes wide, and only then does Dan realize they’re so close their cheeks are nearly brushing. It would only take a quarter turn of his head before his lips would brush Phil’s jaw. Dan places his right hand on Phil’s shoulder before he brings that thought into reality, but that only makes him want to wrap his arm around Phil properly and pull him closer.

He’s horrified at himself, about to pull back, when Phil locks eyes with Dan’s and whispers, “How’d you arrive at that conclusion?” leaning backward into Dan’s right forearm until his wings and back brush Dan’s collarbones.

Dan’s mouth parts in shock and his grip on Phil’s shoulder tightens.

“I-” Dan breathes. He closes his eyes, probably one of the stupidest moves he could ever make, but Phil doesn’t budge, and Dan starts to recollect his bearings, as much as he can while part of his bare chest is against Phil’s back and he can feel can literally feel heat from Phil’s face.

“So it is true,” Dan guesses, staring at the spinning holographic seal to avoid Phil’s darkened eyes. Phil watches his mouth open and close as he fumbles with his words, and Dan wants to both push him away and to meet Phil’s eyes in a silent battle.

“I didn’t say that,” Phil says softly.

“Then tell me-” Dan meets his eyes, “-if this hurts, because I’m going to do some more patchwork on your organs and muscle fibre here if that’s okay with you,” Dan says, sliding his left hand up and down Phil’s side. “May I? I promise I’ll try make it as painless as possible, but you have to tell me if something hurts or else I won’t. Know.”

Phil nods.

“Okay. On a scale from zero to ten, how much pain do you feel in your side right now?” Dan wonders if the number will go up.

“A six now that you’re grilling me,” Phil says.

“Hey!” Dan retorts. “I can literally flambé your intestines if I wanted.”  _ But you won’t _ , Phil’s eyes say.

“Fine. A four. Are you satisfied now?”

Dan doesn’t have the heart to point out that this evidence supports his conclusion.

“Only if that’s what you feel,” Dan says without a trace of fire. Yet, Phil jolts when Dan says ‘feel’ like he’s been scorched. Dan sends himself a mental reminder to investigate that later.

“‘T is,” Phil mumbles.

“There we go,” Dan encourages, lightly squeezing his shoulder. “Now promise you’ll tell me if something hurts when I’m actually doing magic on your insides. I don’t have the guts to kill a demon in cold blood and I don’t plan on doing it any time soon.” Again, nothing will probably happen to further injure Phil, but it never hurts to check, and Dan doesn’t need to be responsible for someone else’s pain when he has the power to alleviate it.

“Promise. Now do your worst,” Phil smiles, his soft cheek brushing Dan’s jaw, and it’s too much. Dan has to lean back before he’s the one that combusts.

Dan closes eyes and takes a deep breath and tries to set his brain back into healing mode as best he can with the heat of Phil’s close-up smiling face branded behind his eyelids.

“I will,” Dan whispers from behind Phil.

Dan keeps his right hand on Phil’s shoulder while he brings his left to the bottom half of his ribcage. From the back, he has better access to what he couldn’t detect last time in his rush to move Phil to his room. He’s surprised Phil is breathing as well as he is considering what he detects.

Dan does what he can with the lung.

“Does it hurt to breathe now?” Dan asks midway through an alteration.

“No more than it did before you started.” Dan can hear the smirk in Phil’s voice.

“Are you sure?” Dan can’t stop himself from asking.

“Dan,” Phil touches his thigh then recoils like he’s been scalded. “I’m not about to break. You can keep going.”

“Right, yeah,” Dan says to himself rather than to Phil.

And then he does continue the healing process bit by bit, allowing something strung tight in own chest give a little as he lets himself trust that even if he can’t see Phil’s face, when Phil’s breath stutters into unevenness, it’s him getting used to the sensation rather than barely tolerating it, that when Phil says “I’m good” when Dan checks in him, he means it.

Even though he’s exhausted more magic in one day than a week combined, it’s almost therapeutic to Dan, being in tune with Phil in a way they could never be when their conversations are half draped in a curtain of sarcasm.

After Dan finishes travelling down the remainder of Phil’s side bearing the worst of the injury, the caress of Phil’s waist, this time without a trace of magic connecting them, is accidental as he pulls his hand away. The way his other hand lingers as it slides off Phil’s shoulder is also accidental.

It seems like hours have passed even though it’s only been a few minutes since Dan sat down on Phil’s cot.

“How are you feeling?” Dan asks.

A sharp breath passes through Phil, while just three seconds ago, he’d been breathing evenly enough.

Dan slips off the cot, finally walking around to face Phil from the foot of the cot as Phil brings his wings back down.

Phil looks shaken, wings curling in on themselves at the tips, and something in Dan’s chest cracks.

“Was it too much at once?”

“No, it was actually great,” Phil says, though his voice tapers off and Dan could swear Phil’s eyes are glassier.

“I think-I think that part is just a dull ache now,” Phil says quietly.

“Thank you,” Phil says, and Dan thinks he means it.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Where else do you feel more than a ‘dull ache’?” Dan continues.

“No-,” Phil trails off. “Just my head,” he corrects, hushed.

“Can I look at it?” Dan matches his soft tone.

“Just be careful. I’ve got demons living inside this noggin,” Phil says with a small smile.

“I will. I can handle them fine,” Dan says, though that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Dan floats the cot higher until Phil’s head is level with Dan’s chest--his bare chest as Dan dumbly recalls.

“Zero to ten? Your head?”

“Three.”

Making his way beside Phil, Dan can see green-yellow flecks on watery eyes that are peering up to him, lips pulling at the corners the smallest bit, antelope horns and a messy half quiff / half fringe framing his sharp jaw and cheekbones.

There’s an inevitable perversion to healing that’s associated with his way of magic. But even before he started making a living out of this, healing and curse breaking became associated with anatomy and physiology, all nuts and bolts that keep a biological machine running. He doesn’t care to look for anything but how to repair them.

So, he doesn’t know why it’s so much harder to channel his brain towards magic when he’s just...looking at Phil.

Dan blinks rapidly then settles one hand against Phil’s forehead, counterbalancing the pressure with a palm sandwiching from the back of Phil’s head. Dan forces himself to focus on what he set out to do and start monitoring what’s going on inside Phil’s head instead of admiring how Phil’s hair looks in a quiff, having brushed it up to get to his forehead.

“Tap my elbow twice if you want me to stop?”

“Yeah.” Phil smiles.

He feels terrible that Phil looks like he trusts him when Dan’s the one who’s going to funnel his trust into making him confess. But he also wants to bask in that smile, the one where Phil looks genuinely uplifted, open. Maybe because those were moments where Dan let his guard slip.

The brain is complicated, but as Dan’s hands maps its recovery and his hands navigate past Phil’s horns and soft black hair, letting him see the fundamental organ that makes him Phil, the hardest part about this is avoiding Phil’s intense eyes that seem to see through his head better than Dan can see through Phil’s. It’s so intense that Dan has to close his eyes halfway through to force the images of Phil’s brain to replace the striking image of what’s right in front of him.

He doesn’t need to remind himself that he’s essentially handing control of his body over to a demon by doing this. Luckily, Phil stays motionless (unless Dan imagines how he leans into his hands). Dan gets into a groove by that point, tracing about Phil’s vaguely alien-shaped head and finding nothing too alarming that time and some pain potion can’t fix. Before he knows it, he’s done.

Dan’s stills where his hands rest just above Phil’s ears, and he blinks his eyes open.

Phil is still staring at him. (Did he ever stop?) His eyes seem slightly misted in a way that Dan can’t quite place, especially not on a demon because it’s a look that seems to be so genuinely felt rather than conveyed. Dead eyes give away a demons’ act, is what he’s learned, and by that logic, Phil hardly ever looks like he’s acting or even like he’s a demon; Dan is finding it harder and harder to connect the word ‘demon’ to ‘Phil’ even after the few hours he’s known him, even as the blood in his veins continues to run black.

“All done,” Dan says.

“The demons didn’t bite you in the butt?” And what kind of demon would ever ask him that?

“No demons got in my butt.”

Dan sighs. That’s up there with top five worst things Dan has said in the past 24 hours.

Phil giggles weakly, vibrating in Dan’s grip and squinting with watery eyes, and cute is what first pops into Dan’s mind. Dan can’t help rubbing the heels of his hands in circles where they rest above his ears, all for the express purpose of easing Phil’s headache of course. Phil even squints his eyes closed in satisfaction.

“Oh, joy. Have I finally put a virus in your robot brain by mistake?” Dan asks, as if he’s not fighting a smile and his own eyes is aren’t pinched in silent laughter.

“You’re the magician. You tell me,” Phil teases.

“Hm, how much pain in your head from zero to ten?”

“One,” Phil says.

“Serious?” Dan says in disbelief and squats to Phil’s eye level. There’s moisture collecting in his eyes.

“I am,” Phil says, quiet in contrast, looking down and blinking rapidly.

Dan looks hard at Phil as a tear rolls down his face.

“What’s wrong?” Dan stills his hands to swipe at it with his thumb.

Phil looks back up and somehow pulls off a convincing smile.

“Nothing bad,” Phil reassures him, and Dan believes it.

“Actually,” Phil pauses, like he’s trying to find the right words, “It was better when you did that.”

“Do what?”

“That thing...” Phil starts.

“Could you be less specific?” Dan curses himself for interrupting Phil but Phil continues.

“The thing with your hands,” Phil manages to say, like admitting that causes him more pain than his actual injuries.

“Oh,” Dan says, not having realized he’d been massaging Phil’s head the whole time.

“Does your head still hurt?”

“Not as much,” Phil smiles. “It’s still better than before you looked at it.” Like the weakling he is, Dan resumes rubbing Phil’s head anyway. Dan’s put him through enough today.

“You definitely have a virus implantation then. Can’t do anything about it,” Dan says.

Phil leans forward into his hands.

“Thanks, Dan,” Phil says shyly. Dan gets a sense he’s thanking him for more than the head massage.

“Like I said, I don’t want you to combust in the night or when we talk tomorrow.” If that argument didn’t convince either of them before, and it’s less convincing this time around. It doesn’t help that Dan is still digging his hands into Phil’s head.

Dan rips his fingers off Phil and summons a pain reliever from storage, presenting it to Phil. “For your head if it gets to a three.” He then floats a stack of dusty paper and a pen onto Phil’s bedside table. “Because you’re a weirdo that probably has scary thoughts they need to vent.” The summoning reminds him of how he’s drawing on his already low magic levels but distracts him from a warmth that lights up his fingers and toes and grounds him, a warmth he longs to share and use to reach out. The problem is that he suspects the source isn’t solely from overusing his magic.

“Can I get you anything else for the night?” Dan asks to conclude his ramble, handing Phil the edge of his blanket.

“I’m good,” Phil laughs.

“Alright, I’m off,” Dan says like his bed isn’t right next to Phil’s cot.

Dan extends a hand to raise the protective barriers, though he doesn’t really want to, then flicks off the light, bathing the room in soft blue light of holographic scenes.

“Night,” Dan yawns.

“‘Night,” Phil murmurs. The absence of silencing charm already rings better in Dan’s ears. 

Dan barely remembers to set an alarm for tomorrow morning, then he’s out like a light.

Dan wakes to an unwelcome alarm and a sleeping Phil too early the next morning, but he manages to scrounge together a quick breakfast for himself, Phil, and May if she’s up for it. Dan brings both servings up, yet Phil is asleep.

To Dan’s relief, May is awake and well enough to eat breakfast - she seems to be recovering fine.

Later, Torin lands on his shoulder halfway through his own breakfast and nuzzles at his cheek.

“Yeah, my bags are disgusting. It’s early so I’m allowed,” Dan says, sipping at coffee. “But I actually slept, you know, I didn’t think I could crash like that.”

When Dan goes back upstairs with a second coffee, he interrupts Phil doodling as he walks to Phil’s side with the giant bird perched on his shoulder.

Phil gawks at Torin, straightening his spine comically high to stare. “You have a bird!”

“A phoenix. Please don’t eat him,” Dan rubs his eyes then peeks at Torin. His phoenix stares back bright-eyed in a way Dan hasn’t been in years.

Betrayed, Dan scoffs. Of course Torin would take a liking to precious Phil. But Dan is curious because Torin is usually has much better judgement than him. He’s the guard dog that detects lies, the canary that alerts him of poison.

“They’re beautiful,” Phil says in awe, ignoring Dan.

He reaches out to pet Torin first but bumps his hand on the barrier he forgot was there, that Dan forgot to remove. Dan waves it away, and Torin, the traitor, jumps immediately onto the free space beside Phil’s bed.

“His name is Burnside.” Torin squawks, and sidles up to Phil’s side (the same one that Dan worked on yesterday).

“Fine, this is Torin. Torin, this is Phil.”

Phil strokes Torin’s feathers gently.

“Hello Torin, aren’t you a magnificent creature.” Torin crawls onto Phil’s lap and plops down, and Phil lights up, petting him with both hands. Torin croons happily.

Suck-ups. Both of them.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to try some coffee, but I see you’ve got your hands full,” Dan comments. If possible, Phil perks up more. Dan bites his lip to stop from grinning.

“My blood is made of coffee and syrup.”

“Yet you said you didn’t have warm food?”

“We make exceptions for warm sugary drinks,” Phil dismisses.

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

When Torin flies out, Dan asks how Phil’s doing (thankfully not dying), Phil describes his drawing of a dream he had in great gory detail, and that’s how Dan’s weirdly domestic morning goes.

Dan sees another client after that, a simple injury that takes no more than ten minutes of his time, but Dan is distracted by the prospect of facing Phil and shattering the illusion of normalcy that blankets their conversation.

This charade they’ve been putting on - it all has to end once Dan finds out why he found Phil nearly dead in his garden.

Dan feels like he should give Phil something to take back to his demon dimension if he’s going to banish him just like that and Phil hasn’t really done anything wrong, so Dan picks up a stone and starts creating.

It’s still light out when Dan amps himself up in preparation for the confrontation and crosses his bedroom doorway with lunch to find Torin still curled up with Phil. It feels like a punch to the gut, and the sight goes against everything he’s convincing himself he has to do.

“How are you feeling?” Dan asks, unable to keep softness from colouring his tone.

Phil startles.

“Fine,” Phil says while managing not to sound like he’s being short with Dan. In fact, he’s smiling, and it hurts more.

“Anything hurt?” Dan asks.

“Not stabby or eating your insides hurt. Just like, slightly achy.”

Cavalier as can be, Dan claps, “Well, glad we got that out of the way,” even if he kind of wants to double check on Phil.

“Aw, confession time already?” Phil’s fingers grip Torin harder. Dan only knows because Torin huddles closer when Dan stresses and does the same.

“About time, yeah,” Dan says. “But I presume everything’s better when you’re not starving?”

“Well yeah, you don’t want me eating you.”

It’s with valiant attempts at concealing grins and jokes that should be inappropriate in other context that they share a meal. 

(“I-” Phil breaks off, like he’s contemplating saying something, “I like your food better than the stuff from my dimension.”

“No shit, you ate like, the equivalent of rocks and bark. Wait, do you actually eat those?”

“Nah, but Satan might.”

“Well then, I'd almost rather choke on Satan's giant fiery cock than eat your food.”)

Falling into comfortable silence or inane banter is easy, natural in a way that maintains his energy levels, enhances them even, rather than simply depleting them like usual does when he talks to others.

So it’s with a bittersweet taste on his tongue that Dan digs around in his pocket and says, faux casual, “Here, I made you something.”

“For when you go back to your dimension.” Dan takes Phil’s hand, covering it with his other hand as he drops the stone he finished making a few minutes ago into Phil’s palm. 

A hush falls over the room.

Phil curls his palm around the stone, the back of his hand and fingers nested against Dan’s for a brief moment as Dan draws back. 

“It’s not much, but all you need to turn it on is your will.”

Phil opens his palm, eyes the stone in confusion, and suddenly, there’s a blue jay and a phoenix that light up the room. Luminous strokes of blue light brush against the edges of Phil’s sharp cheekbones and halfway open jaw.

“Thank you, it’s very pretty,” Phil says softly though his voice falls slightly flat, lacking the enthusiasm it had earlier. Dan is probably projecting when he arrives at the conclusion that Phil dislikes the idea of being interrogated about or of being sent back to his dimension almost as much as Dan.

The subdued feeling seems to bleed into the inevitable conversation they were stalling (and does it say something about how he’s mellowed that it sounds wrong to call it a highly anticipated conversation?)

Instead, he questions Phil even though he kind of wants to hug him.

“So you’re saying demons sent you up here? Why didn’t they leave you to die?”

“I think they were trying to be test me, see if I’d ever make it back alive or they’d assume I was dead if I didn’t.”

Dan’s pulled up a chair to next to Phil’s cot where he can see that Phil’s features are gentle but  dampened. Dan mostly wants to see a proper smile back on Phil’s face.

“How many were there?”

“Three? Maybe two? I didn’t know them well. It was a few demons that singled me out.”

Question after question Dan rapid-fires, and he continues to grow more incensed, burning brighter at the unfair hand Phil’s been dealt.

“I’m not a fan of confrontation,” Phil says with a rueful smile midway through their conversation.

“How did you survive being a demon?” Dan wants to stuff the words back into his mouth immediately after he’s said them, especially when Phil’s face hardens and his wings twitch.

“I almost didn’t.” Dan’s eyes widen.

Still, he pushes. “What the hell are you saying? Other demons nearly killed you? All because of something dumb like you not standing up to bullies?” Dan can’t help raising his voice and waving his hands around. His chest heaves in anger. 

Phil catches his wrist mid-swing, releasing it so quickly he nearly throws it when Dan freezes and realizes how worked up he’s gotten over what might very be a wrong assumption or even a lie.

Through his agitation, Dan still sees Phil retreat further into his lanky body, wings curling around himself, like he’s protecting himself against Dan lashing out at him. 

It’s as if Phil is hardwired to be tactile, but conditioned not to touch.

Dan touches Phil’s wrist as gently and reassuringly as he can. Phil looks down to where Dan’s fingertips link them and rolls his wrist until Dan’s palm barely grazes it. Dan finally closes his hand around Phil’s wrist.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you when you haven’t done anything wrong,” Dan says, even though it scares him to acknowledge how angry he is on Phil’s behalf aloud. 

Dan squeezes Phil’s wrist lightly. Phil’s wings unfurl a little.

“Why did they do that to you specifically? Why haven’t there been others?” Dan thinks aloud. “I’m pretty old, mate, How have I not known if half dead demons showed up before.” (Dan finds out that Phil is actually older than him by 46 years.)

“Because I’m obviously weak. And I couldn’t hide it well enough. Then it became impossible to stand up to them.”

“Weak?” Dan spits. Phil, the one who taps into what’s boiling under Dan’s skin before Dan himself realizes it, the one who somehow walks past torturous events with a smile on his face? He could go on.

“I’m not done yet, lemme finish,” Phil continues, slipping his wrist slightly out of Dan’s hand before Dan can squeeze Phil’s hand off. 

Yet, Phil rests his hand in Dan’s loosened palm. Dan waits for it to him to move it. He doesn’t.

Dan takes Phil’s hand in his and squeezes it in apology.

“In my dimension, according to the ones that make it to your world, being called human is like, one of the worst insults you could imagine.” 

“They called me human too, as you can imagine.”

“It’s quite literally their goal to prey on innocent earthen hearts and twist their minds how they want. If they interact with an earthen and are banished back without having gotten something out of it or having told someone about their latest conquest, it’s a dishonour.” 

“Because it would mean that the earthens have infected us with their poison - emotions. That’s what being human means to us. You admit defeat if you leave an earthen unchanged and you start to feel.”

Dan rubs his thumb against Phil’s hand, slack jawed.

“I guess I stood out to them for that reason,” Phil finishes, voice soft and eyes cast down.

“Can I hug you?” Dan asks, though he’s about to do it whether or not Phil says yes.

“Do I still get dinner now that I’ve confessed my sins and stuff?”

Dan tugs on Phil’s hand and launches himself at Phil, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and burying his face into the space between Phil’s shoulder and neck.

Phil freezes for the first few seconds then melts into his shoulder, circling his arms around Dan’s waist.

“Wait, am I hurting you?” Dan panics. 

Phil laughs, squeezing Dan impossibly tight, and Dan feels the rumbling in his own fluttering chest. 

“I promise I’ll tell you if you are. I think I’m getting the hang of the feelings thing. Also, is that a yes?”

“Yes, you dummy,” Dan definitely does not press his lips to Phil’s neck.

Dan lets himself believe that Phil’s ulterior motive is not getting banished, and Dan is all too happy to play into it if it means keeping Phil.

The next morning, Torin conveniently bursts into flames after he sees Phil, and Dan is maybe too endeared at how petrified Phil looks when it happens, how fascinated Phil looks when the baby chick emerges. Maybe to the three of them, it feels like the beginning of a new chapter.

The phoenix starts to fly to Phil instead of Dan when he comes home from hunting, and Dan won’t deny that he’s jealous of Phil. 

(“You’re not going to abandon me for Phil, are you?” Dan asks.

Torin croons.

“I am not codependent on Phil. It’s only been a few days since he’s been awake.”

“I just want to keep him company while he’s cooped up.”)

Two days later, Dan wakes from a good night’s sleep for the third day in a row. May’s curse is broken, she’s recovered well, and when she thanks Dan, Dan allows himself to feel good about it. 

Dan wonders what it is that’s been making his head a less miserable place these past few days. Is it being kept so busy that it keep his own thoughts from overtaking him? Having someone to help curb those thoughts into something more positive?

He also floats Phil around the house, acquainting him with the way his business operates, what needs to be ordered, cleaned, written down.

(“If you’re going to doodle the fake plants in my room, can I get you to maybe draw actual land plants and catalogue them?)

The physical barrier disappears for good, and it feels like other other barriers are starting to crumble as well.

Three days later, he lets Phil walk again, and Phil stumbles like a giraffe taking its first steps.

That same day, Phil cooks with a medicinal spice and ends up staining the whole ceiling and Dan’s eyebrows green. 

Dan just pecks him on the cheek and Phil wraps his wings around Dan, cocooning him.

Three weeks later, they’re talking about everything and nothing, and suddenly, they’re kissing, and it’s effortless like breathing. So is falling into bed together.

It’s a few years later that he starts believing he doesn’t need a ground-breaking discovery to validate his long-lived existence. There’s some comfort in finishing work and going to bed with someone who doesn’t just caw and brush their feathers against his cheek when he needs someone to talk to (Truth be told, Phil also does that, but he’s also very different from Torin), someone who makes each day more bearable, someone who becomes his best partner in multiple ways. 

And they have forever to keep learning.

**Author's Note:**

> Congratulations and thank you if you made it to the end. Seriously. Tumblr post is [here](https://astudyinfondness.tumblr.com/post/181466496773/demons-in-my-head-rating-t-word-count-15k).


End file.
